The concept of electrostatic doping and related devices

Electrostatic doping aims at replacing donor/acceptor dopant species with free electron/hole charges induced by the gates in ultrathin MOS structures. Highly doped N+/P+ terminals and virtual P-N junctions can be emulated in undoped layers prompting innovative reconfigurable devices with enriched functionality. The distinct merit is that the carrier concentration and polarity (i.e., electrostatic doping) are tunable via the gate bias. After presenting the fundamentals, we review the family of electrostatically-doped devices fabricated with emerging or mature technologies (nanowires, nanotubes, 2D materials, FD-SOI). The multiple facets of the Hocus Pocus diode are discussed by underlining the difference with classical physical diodes. Electrostatic doping gave rise to a number of band-modulation devices with outstanding memory and sharp-switching capability. The concept, intrinsic mechanisms and typical applications are described in detail.